Sarah’s gaze still held his.
“What, Simone? You think you can f**k her?” Rafe’s breath rasped over the line. “You can’t. She wouldn’t let you touch her. Wouldn’t let anyone but me come close.” Absolute confidence.
Think again. But he bit back the words. They’d just piss off Rafe, and he didn’t want the bastard taking out his rage on Dane.
“One hour,” Rafe said again. “Bring her. Bring two men as backup. We switch, and you walk away clean.”
“While you kill her?”
Sarah’s body tensed.
“I won’t kill Sarah.” Surprise there. “Hasn’t she told you? I can’t.”
“But you can slash her, can’t you, ass**le? Can dig those claws into her and—”
“How the f**k do you know?”
Because I saw her. Every damn inch. Touched and tasted.
Lucas didn’t say a word.
Sarah came closer, her footsteps silent. She touched his hand. “Make the trade,” she whispered.
His breath caught in his throat.
“Make it, or he dies.” Sarah’s voice was stronger, but fear showed in her eyes.
“Sarah.” Rafe’s low growl. Hungry, almost desperate. “See, she wants to come back to me.”
Like hell.
“Two men come with you,” Rafe said again. “You stay in human form, and you bring Sarah to me.”
The wind lifted her hair, tossing it lightly against her cheek.
“If I don’t get my mate back, then you’ll get your wolf in pieces. Very, very small pieces.”
The line died.
At first, Lucas didn’t move. Couldn’t. Rage pumped through his body. A fury that was all too familiar.
The fury he’d felt when his father died . . .
When Kaber had defeated him so easily and tossed his broken body into the dirt . . .
When the vamps took Jordan . . . When he’d tracked the scent of his brother’s blood to that hellhole in Vegas . . .
My mate.
Sarah licked her lips.
“Lucas?” Caleb asked. “What’s the plan?”
He didn’t look away from Sarah. He heard a crunch and realized he’d crushed the phone. “Get ready,” he said to Caleb. “You and Piers are coming with me.” Michael would stay and protect the house.
“Where are we go—”
“To get Dane back.”
Her gaze fell. Lucas caught her chin and forced her stare back to him. “You’ve been holding out on me.” He barely bit out the words. His claws wanted to burst from his skin. His teeth were burning, lengthening.
Caleb’s footsteps thundered away. Lucas took Sarah’s hand and pulled her around the side of the house. He pressed her against the rough brick walls.
“I-I know . . . there’s no choice . . . you have to—”
His mouth took hers in a hot, hard kiss, swallowing the words. She gasped against his lips, and he took her breath, too. Took everything.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. Wasn’t easy. He was way past that point. The blood pounded in his veins, and he heard the bastard’s voice echoing in his mind.
His mouth wrenched away from hers. “Why the hell . . .” He sucked in a breath, tasted her. Wanted more. Needed more. Just like that bastard Rafe seemed to need her. “Does that ass**le think you’re his mate?”
Sarah flinched. “You know . . . you know we were lovers, I told you that.”
Yeah, and how the hell that had happened, he didn’t know. “What is it, babe? You got a thing for badasses?” First Rafe.
Now me.
She pressed back harder against the wall, as if she were trying to put space between them. “He wasn’t like . . . that at first.” The words came slowly. “He understood me, made me feel like I fit in. Finally, I fit someplace. I was wanted.”
Still was wanted. The guy was willing to kill in order to get her back—and Lucas was ready to kill to keep her. After only a few days . . .
Her lashes lowered. “I didn’t realize he was playing me until it was too late. I’d already slept with him.”
“How many times?”
Her lashes flew back up. “What?”
Don’t want to know. Don’t want to think about—“How many f**king times did you screw him?”
She shoved against him. “None of your damn business!”
Yeah, it is. His hands curled around her shoulders. “He thinks you’re his mate.”
Her mouth popped open in shock. “What? No, no, he just wants to kill me—”
“He called you his mate.” A wolf wouldn’t make a mistake like that.
“Then he was lying or jerking you around or—” She broke off, shaking her head. “I’m not his mate.”
“Shifters know their mates.” Not some predestined our-souls-are-meant-as-one bullshit. He didn’t buy that crap. But shifters could recognize those who were the best compatible genetic matches. Survival of the f**king fittest. Not everyone could produce a shifter’s offspring. It took a real special match, or else the world would have been exploding with shifters by now.
Some shifters recognized their mates by scent. An instinctive reaction. Some recognized them during the sex act—couldn’t get more instinctive than that.
“How many times?” he gritted again.
She shook her head. “I’m not telling you, okay? Like I said, that’s none of your business!”
“Babe, your ex-lover is gunning for my pack, he says he’s mated to you, that I can’t trust you—”
If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he might have missed that small widening of her eyes. But he had been watching her. Very closely.
Can’t trust you, can I?
“I don’t care what he thinks,” she said quietly. “I’m not his mate. I’m not planning to spend the rest of my life—however long or short that may be—with him. We’re done.”
“Damn straight you are.” His hand dove into the thickness of her hair. He caught the nape of her neck and pulled her closer.
“He’s trying to kill me,” she told him, voice husky. “Isn’t that proof enough that we’re not mated? Would a shifter kill his mate?”
It had happened before. Too many times. The animal was too close and jealousy was a primal emotion. An emotion that had roused his own beast.
“I’m not turning you over to him.” Their mouths were so close. He could already taste her.